His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:
He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed,
And somewhat pensively he wooed.
He sang of love with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith and inward glee;
That was the Song--the Song for me!

"_His voice was buried among trees_," says Wordsworth; "a metaphor
expressing the love of _seclusion_ by which this bird is marked; and
characterizing its note as not partaking of the shrill and the
piercing, and therefore more easily deadened by the intervening shade;
yet a note so peculiar, and withal so pleasing, that the breeze,
gifted with that love of the sound which the poet feels, penetrates
the shade in which it is entombed, and conveys it to the ear of the
listener."

Wordsworth's poetry on the emotional side (as distinguished from its
mystical or its patriotic aspects) could hardly be more exactly
described than in the above sentence. For while there are few poems
of his which could be read to a mixed audience with the certainty of
producing an immediate impression; yet on the other hand all the
best ones gain in an unusual degree by repeated study; and this Is
especially the case with those in which, some touch of tenderness is
enshrined in a scene of beauty, which it seems to interpret while it
is itself exalted by it. Such a poem is _Stepping Westward_, where
the sense of sudden fellowship, and the quaint greeting beneath the
glowing sky, seem to link man's momentary wanderings with the cosmic